The Jesus of History

t; and the maxim may be applied conversely-that what has reached a heart has come from a heart-that what continues t

paths-he finds himself in the Aeneid; and from this certain things are deduced about the makers of those poems-that

r the literary graces of the translators or even of the original authors, though in one case these are more considerable than is sometimes allowed. That the Gospels owe their appeal to the recorded sayings and doings of our Lord, is our natural way of putting it to-day; but if for "our Lord" we put a plainer description, more congenial to the day in which the Gospels

rians and critics to look for the explanation. What has been his appeal? And what the heart and nature, from which came this incredible power and reach of appeal? "Out of the abundance (the overflow) of the heart the mouth speaketh," he said. (Matt. 12:34). This he amplified, as we have seen, by his insistence on the weight of every idle word (Ma

ficance by approaching him at a new angle, from an outlook not perhaps much frequented. How did he come to speak in this manner, to say this and that? To what feeling or thought, to what attitude to life, is this

r language (Mark 13:11). Whether or no he had consciously thought it all out; we can see the value of his rule, and how it fits in with his way of life and safeguards it. Under such a rule speech will not be stereotyped; no set form of words will impose itself on the free movement of thought, the mind can and will move of itself unhampered; and when the mind keeps and develops such freedom of movement, it commonly breaks new ground and handles new things.

a of the face or the character which we analyse. The whole is more than the sum of its parts. The face and the character have an "integrity," a wholeness. The detail may be of immense value to us, studied as detail; but for the true view the detail, familiar as it may be to us, and dear to us, must be sunk in the general view. Especially is this true of great characters. The "reconstruction of a personality"-to borrow a phrase from some psychologists-is a very difficult matter, even when we are masters of our detail. There is a proportion, a perspective, a balance, a poise about a character-my terms may involve some

n the Gospels refer to Jesus "looking." He "looked round about on" the people in the Synagogue, and then-with some suggestion of a pause and silence while he looked, "he saith unto the man" (Mark 3:5). When Peter deprecated the Cross, we find the same; "when he had turned about and looked on his disciples, he rebuked Peter" (Mark 8:33). When the rich young ruler came so impulsively to him to ask him about eternal life, Jesus, "looking upon him, loved him"-and we touch there a certain reminiscence of eye-witnesses (Mark 10:21). There are other references of the same kind in the narratives-the look seems to come into the story naturally, without the writer

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for instance, the leper approaches him, implies the man's eyes fixed in close study on Jesus' face, and finding nothing there to check him and everything to bring him nearer (Mark 1:41). When Mark tells us that he greeted the Syro-Ph

ess that light up his lessons. For instance, there is a little-noticed phrase, that grows very delightful as we study it, in his words to the seventy disciples-"Into whatsoever house ye enter, first say, Peace to this house (the common "salaam" of the East); and if a son of peace be there, your peace shall rest upon it; if not, your "salaam" will come back to you" (Lu

o; he has caught it in time and flicks it away; he is safe and he will not swallow it. And then, adds Jesus, he swallowed a camel. How many of us have ever pictured the process, and the series of sensations, as the long hairy neck slid down the throat of the Pharisee-all that amplitude of loose-hung anatomy-the hump-two humps-both of them slid down-and he never noticed-and the legs-all of them-with whole outfit of knees and big padded feet. The Pharisee swallowed a camel-and never noticed it (Matt. 23:24, 25). It is t

? Nor at the suggestion of doing two miles of forced labour when only one was demanded (Matt. 5:41)? Nor when he suggested that anxiety about food and clothing was a mark of the Gentiles (Matt. 6:32)? Did none of his disciples mark a touch of irony when he said that among the Gentile dynasties

n and again "moved with compassion." We saw the leper approach him, with eyes fixed on the face of Jesus. The man's appeal-"If thou wilt thou canst make me clean"-his misery moves Jesus; he reaches out his hand, and, with no thought for contagion or danger, he touches the leper-so deep was the wave of pity that swept through him-and he heals the man (Mark 1:40-42). It would almost seem as if the touching impressed the spectators as much as the healing. Compassion is an old-fashioned word, and sympathy has a wide range of suggestions, some of them by now a little cold; we have to realize, if we can, how deeply and genuinely Jesus felt with men, how keen his feeling was for their suffering and for their hunger, and at the same moment reflect how strong and solid a nature it is that is so profoundly moved. Again, when we read of his happy way i

s of mind. His thought will occupy us in later chapters; here we are concerned ra

rised at slowness of mind in other men (Matt. 15:16; Mark 8:21). And in other things he is as quick-he sees "the kingdoms of this world in a moment of time" (Luke 4:5); he beholds "Satan fallen (aorist participle) from heaven like lightning" (Luke 10:18)-two very striking passages, which illuminate his mind for us in a very important phase of it. We ought to have been able to guess without them that he s

en among men of genius-an unusual sense of fact, a very keen and vivid sympathy, and a gift of bringing im

ems to lose so much and yet constantly surprises us by what it has captured, and sometimes hardly itself realizes how much has been done. The gains are not registered, but they are real and they are never lost, and come flashing out all unexpectedly when the note is struck that calls them. So one feels it was with Jesus' intimate knowledge of Nature-it is not the knowledge of botanist or naturalis

ystem of two standards of truth spoils the mind (Matt. 5:33-37). The divided mind fails because it is not for one thing or the other. If it is impossible to serve God and mammon

freedom from fastidiousness," "a singular largeness" in his intellectual life. The small question is answered in the larger-"the life is more than meat and the body is more than raiment" (Luke 12:23). When he is challenged on divorce, he goes past Moses to God (Matt. 19:4)-"He which made them at the beginning made them male and female." Every question is settled for him by reference to God,

antly plain that simple and straightforward people do understand Jesus-not all at once, but sufficiently for the moment, and with a sense that there is more beyond. His thought is uncomplicated by distinctions due to tradition and its accidents. His whole attitude to life is simple-he has no taboos; he comes "eating and drinking" (Matt. 11:19); and he told his followers, when he sent them out to preach, to eat what they were given (Luke 10:7); "give alms," he says, "of such things as ye have; and, behold, all things are clean unto you" (Luke 11:41). If God gives the food, it will probably be clean; and the old taboos will be mere tradition of men. He is not interested in what men call "signs," in the except

hey are not the "natural objects" with which dull people try to brighten their pages and discourses. They are happy living things that come to his mind, as it were, of themselves, because, shall we say? they know they will be welcome there; and they are welcome. His pity and sympathy are unlike ours in having so much more intelligence and fellow-feeling in them. He understan

ith the net (Matt. 13:47), the sheep among the wolves (Matt. 10:16), the woman sweeping the house (Luke 15:8), the debtor going to prison accompanied by his creditor and the officer with the judge's warrant (Luke 12:58), the shepherd separating his sheep from the goats (Matt. 25:32), the children playing in the market-place pretending to pipe or to mourn (Luke 7:32), the fall of the house (Matt. 7:27)-or the ironical pictures of the blind leading the blind straight for t

state of the place is worse than the first (Luke 11:24-26). Is this leaving the real? One critic will say it is, "No," says another man, in a graver tone and speaking slowly, "it's real enough; it's my story." But have we left the text too far? Then let us try another passage. Here is a funeral procession, a bier with a dead man laid out on it, "wrapped in a linen cloth" (Matt. 27:59), "bound hand and foot with grave-clothes" (John 11:44)-a common enough sight in the East; but who are they who are carrying him-those silent, awful figures, bound like him hand and foot, and wound with the same linen cloth, moving swiftly and steadily along with their burden? It is the dead burying the dead (Luke 9:60). Add to these the account of the three Temptations-stories in picture, which must come from Jesus himself, and illustr

Here again is quite another scene-the rich and middle-aged man, who has prospered in everything and is just completing his plans to retire from business, when he feels a tap on his shoulder and hears a voice speaking to him, and he turns and is face to face with God (Luke 12:20). And there are all the other stories of God'

full, no doubt, supplied by pipes, and ministering its gifts by pipe and tap, regulated, tiresome, and dead. "The water that I shall give him," days Jesus in the Fourth Gospel (John 4:14), "shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life." The water metaphors of the New Testament are not of trough and tank. Jesus

nt matters, and do not mean at all what he suggests (Matt. 2:15, 23). The Hebrew with the Old Testament, like the Greek of those days with Homer, made what play he pleased; if the words fitted his fancy, he took them regardless of connexion or real meaning; if he was pressed for a defence, he would take refuge in allegory. A fashion was set for the Church which bore bad fruit. The Old Testament was emptied of meaning to fortify the Christian faith with "proof texts." When Jesus quotes the Old Testament, it is for other ends and with a clear, incisive sense of the prophet's meaning. "Go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy and not sacrifice" (Matt. 9:13 and 12:7, quoting Hosea 6:6). He not merely quotes Hosea, but it is plain that he has got at the very heart of the man and his message. Similarly when he reads Isaiah in the Synagogue at Nazareth (Luke 4:17), he lays hold of a great passage and brings out with emphasis

control of human life; but a mind like that of Jesus, like that which he gave to his followers, will never be bound by authority and tradition. Moses is very well, but if God has higher ideas of marriage-what then? The Scribes and the Pharisees sit

att. 12:11), or will he refrain from leading his ox to the water on the Sabbath (Luke 13:15)? Such questions bring a theological problem into the atmosphere of sense-and it is better solved there. He is interrupted by a demand that he arbitrate between a man and his brother; and his reply is virtually, Does your brother accept your choice of an arbitrator? (Luke 12:14)-and that matter is finished. "Are there few that be saved?" asks some one in vague speculation, and he gets a practical a

in his talk, to be cajoled or flattered. There is greatness in his language-in his reference of everything to great principles and to God; greatness in his freedom from ambition, in his contempt of advertisement and popularity, in his appeal to the best in men, in his belief in men, in his power of winning and keeping friends, in his gift for making great men out of petty. In all this w